Ali maintaining positive frame of mind

Reading goalkeeper Ali Al-Habsi feels that the Royals squad will keep their tails up for the remainder of the season, and keep working their hardest until the curtain falls on the campaign in May.

“In football, you have to think about everything positively,” said Ali. “We have 16 games left and anything can happen. We will try our best and try to keep everyone happy – the fans have been brilliant and behind the team.

“We have to believe and keep working hard on the training ground, and wins will come. We have a great run at home – we haven’t been beaten for a long time now – and hopefully that will happen very quickly for a winning mentality.”

Reading’s next three fixtures are all on home turf – league fixtures against Burnley and Rotherham sandwich an FA Cup tie against either West Brom or Peterborough, depending on who wins Wednesday evening’s replay.

A goalless draw against Wolves last weekend for Reading took the run to five matches unbeaten at Madejski Stadium – but the stopper is desperate to turn some tight games into wins.

“We’ll take the draw, and now we have more home games in the league and the cup,” continued the Omani stopper. “Hopefully we will get better as well because we want to get winning as soon as possible.

“In the last few games we have had draws and lost in the last minute [against Ipswich], but I think we did well with the performances and we are happy. Our skipper is back in the team now as well and some of the injured players are coming back – hopefully we will get a good run from now until the end of the season.

“I know that the gap is a bit far from the play-offs, but in this league if you win four or five games in a row, you are there. We have to keep the focus, we have to keep doing our job 100 per cent. We have some huge games in the next two weeks.”